High flying delays to stay

The Corporation say a combination of high air traffic, bad weather and "knock on affects from the national network" are to blame for Brisbane airport's bad arrival time report card, but a long term solution is a long way off.

A new Federal Government report has identified Brisbane airport as having the worst arrival times in the country stating only 69.2 per cent of arriving flights landed within 15 minutes of their scheduled time in December 2012.

Despite the lacklustre results, a spokesperson for Brisbane Airport Corporation, Leonie Vandeven says Brisbane is the second busiest one-runway airport in the world which accounts for the length of delays experienced at times.

"All airports are growing at a rate of about 4.5 per cent each year, so we're all experiencing significant growth in passenger numbers but in the case of Brisbane we're doing it on one runway," she says.

Planning for a second parallel runway in Brisbane began over 20 years ago; however Ms Vandeven says the solution to the problem won't be operational until 2020.

"The only long term solution will be the building of the second runway, which is in phase one currently and we hope to have that open in 2020.

"Unfortunately Brisbane airport is built on swamp land and it's a complex, difficult and expensive build. There are a number of factors that come into why it wasn't built earlier."

Ms Vandeven says the BAC understands the frustrations of passengers, airlines and pilots travelling through Brisbane airport and says they're "working with the airlines and industry partners" to minimise delays.

Airservice Australia's Executive General Manager of Air Traffic Control Jason Harfield says the growth in passenger numbers is an issue facing all of Australia's major airports, not just Brisbane.

"Historically our traffic levels have been that we've had more capacity in the system than we've had demand. With the traffic growth that has happened over the last 10 years, we're now in a situation where demand is outstripping capacity.

He says dealing with the growth is a big learning curve and adjustment for the entire aviation industry.

"Brisbane to Sydney is the seventh busiest air route in the world, Melbourne to Sydney is the forth busiest in the world...We handle about 4 million air traffic movements in Australia - a third being in that triangle.

"So it's something we need to take consideration of - we need the infrastructure to match that," he says.

Ms Vandeven says the second parallel runway will provide enough capacity for passenger numbers anticipated in 2020, and strategies are being developed to manage traffic until that time, including the introduction of a ground delay traffic management tool called Metron late in 2012.

"Since that has been in operation, for just four weeks that has minimised by 40 per cent airborne delays over Brisbane airport," Ms Vandeven says.

But Mr Harfield says the ground delay traffic flow system is not a permanent solution.

"The Metron flow tool deals with managing the demand on the airport and as traffic grows if you don't also deal with the capacity all you're going to do is introduce more delays in the system.

He says Airservice Australia is working with the BAC and the airlines to create more capacity from existing infrastructure until the new runway comes on board.

A Qantas spokesperson told ABC Online that Brisbane Airport was one of the poorer performing airports in 2012 for delaying their aircraft on arrival.

"Our passengers are often delayed when the aircraft is put in a holding pattern over Brisbane," the Qantas spokesperson said, "we welcome the initiatives that the airport is introducing to help improve efficiency."

Brisbane Airport's smaller cross runway, which has been closed for maintenance will reopen in February, which Ms Vandeven hopes will take some pressure off the peak congestion times.